Huck Out West(22)

“Both—? But, Abigail—!”

“Don’t try to cover up for them, Ezekiel,” says Abigail. “Always tell the truth, it’s God’s way. There WAS two of them, but they was so skinny they only jest weighed together like one. If they turned sideways in the sun, you couldn’t hardly see them at all.”

“Did they say where they was going, ma’am?”

“One of them said something about jining the Mormons so as to load up on a passel a fresh wives, so I lay that’s where they was aiming.”

“That’s what my father is going to do to me, sir,” whispered someone in the wagon with me. I most jumped out of my skin. There was a pretty girl with big sad eyes setting in a dark corner. Her hands was roped together. I whispers back that I was nation sorry for busting in on her like that, and she says it don’t matter, it was a thrill to be visited by the famous Pony Express rider. But her chin was quivering. “My father has brought me out here to sell me to the Mormons for some old man’s extra wife,” she says. And, without making no noise, she begun to cry. “I feel so all alone!” she whimpered, the words half stuck in her throat. “I need somebody to help me!”

“A crazy little fella with a twitch, ma’am?”

“That’s him.”

“Him and Charlie must be traveling on-sweet, Buck.”

“’Pears like it, Rafe. Makes it easier. Catch one, catch both. But we got to turn round t’other way.”

The bound girl was silently sobbing. It most broke my heart. I couldn’t hardly look at her eyes without busting out myself. She had dark coiled ringlets at her temples, little dimples in her cheeks, soft unpainted lips that was all a-trembly. She was the prettiest thing I ever seen.

“We don’t hold no truck with Mormons,” Abigail was saying. “Hope none a you fellas ain’t one.”

“No, ma’am. We’re all Christians.”

“Well, I’m right pleased to hear it. We’re set to hold a prayer meeting. I hope you boys’ll stay and pray with us.”

“Uh, no thanks, ma’am. We’ll be pushing on. Got to catch them two renegades and deliver ’em to their rightful punishment.”

“Well, God bless you, then,” she says. “You boys take care. Mind the rattlesnakes.”

When the soldiers had galloped off, the missionaires broke out in loud argufying over what the reverend’s missus had done and said. Some says it was treason and blastemy and she could get them all hung and outlawed from heaven, others that you couldn’t never trust them bluecoats and Sister Abbie was a hero and a saint to stand up to them like she done. They was talking about me, too, but I couldn’t hardly hear them. There was a loud whumping in my ears. The young girl was telling me in her soft weepy way that I had to help her run away, and I got to go with her to protect her in the wilderness.

“Say, where is that fellow?” someone was asking, and the reverend he says, “Let us pray for guidance.”

“We can go where you took the bleeding cattle,” the girl whispered. I mumbled what they was really called, then wished I hadn’t, because she wanted to know what THEY was and how they done whatever it was THEY done and why. She looked at me with such a sweet timid smile, tears running down her cheeks, I couldn’t think how to answer, though the widow would a wanted to wash my head out with soap if she’d knowed what was a-roaring through it. The girl set to telling me then how her cruel father would rope her wrists to her ankles, push her on her knees, face down and naked, and thrash the highest part with a horsewhip. She cast her eyes down shyly. I didn’t know where to look. “He’s wounded me most awful,” she breathed. “I can’t show you now, but when we’re alone . . .”

Outside, the holy hallooing was winding down. I knowed that meant I’d have to go, and that’s what the young girl whispered, touching my hand with her bound ones and fairly melting my bones. “My father will be coming back now and he is a mighty hard man.” But I couldn’t move. I was desperate for something, but I didn’t know what.

“If I pin my white hair ribbon on the back flap, it means it’s safe for you to stop by,” she whispered. She bent forwards and kissed me on the cheek, damping it with her tears. It warn’t much but it was something never happened to me before. “Now hurry! Here he comes!”

I didn’t know where I was, but I knowed I had to be somewheres else. I slipped out the back, scrouched down for a second betwixt the big wagon wheels, then scaddled over to Jim’s chuck wagon and crept inside. I laid down behind the chuck box in all the gear I’d stowed there, touching my cheek where her wet lips had been and feeling marvelous sick, till the others found me. Love. I knowed then what it was and knowed I was most ruined by it.





CHAPTER X


FTER THAT SMACK, all I could think about was that pretty girl and her plan for us to run off together from her monster father. I passed back and forth behind her wagon, my eyes peeled for the hair ribbon. I didn’t even know her name, but I couldn’t think who to ask without drawing trouble down on the both of us. I tried to recollect what Tom said about distressid damzuls and what you was directed to do when one landed on you. I judged it probably warn’t the properest thing to squeeze them, but I didn’t want to do nothing else. Such thoughts was making me feel dreadful restless and uncomfortable, but whenever I rode out to ca’m myself, I rode straight back in again and went a-looking for the ribbon, aching all over.